


Falling Short

by Pyria



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Dragon Age Prompt Exchange Fill, F/M, IMPLIED Solas/Lavellan - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-13
Updated: 2021-02-13
Packaged: 2021-03-13 20:35:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29407755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pyria/pseuds/Pyria
Summary: A fill for this prompt on the Dragon Age prompt exchange"A battle goes sour and one of the Inquisitor’s party members and good friends is killed. The Inquisitor is devastated and refuses to lead the Inquisition anymore. If they can’t even keep their friends safe, how do they hope to save thousands? How in the world can they fight someone like Corypheus and a dragon?!"This isn't related to my other work Halam'Shivanas, but I definitely used the same Lavellan.
Kudos: 4





	Falling Short

It wasn’t supposed to happen like this.

A routine trip to the hinterlands to close a rift plaguing farmers wasn’t supposed to happen like this. 

Pyria Lavellan was proud of her skills as a healer. On multiple occasions she had even been able to teach Solas a thing or two. She owed much of her skills to Deshanna, who expected nothing less than perfection from a healer. She had spent much of her youth speeding along the healing of broken bones on the hunters of her clan, stopping excessive bleeding after child birth, and easing the symptoms of illness. On multiple occasions she had stared death in the eye and won, bringing her clan members back from the brink of death.

She was prepared for battles, always stocked with healing herbs and lyrium to supplement her mana reserves. Going into this battle had been no different. She kept an eye on the battlefield from afar, throwing up barriers and the occasional crack of lightning as she anticipated each blow from the demons surrounding Cassandra, Dorian , and Varric. 

As usual Cassandra charged in first, deflecting the blows of the demon’s claws with her shield, using her seeker’s light to stun them before bashing them. Varric stayed atop the cliff along with Dorian, mere feet away from her vantage point on the edge of the cliff. With her focus on Cassandra, she heard Dorian’s cry for help before seeing the damage a demon had done to his side. He stumbled backwards, attempting and failing to use healing magic on himself. He was out of potions. Pyria fade stepped towards him, landing with a thud next to him. 

Her hands were frantic, attempting to find where the claw was stuck inside of him. Dorian gritted his teeth as her mana probed his wound.

“I’m sorry, i’m sorry.” she whispered. 

It didn’t take long for her to find the source of his pain. She shoved a healing potion in the general direction of his face and shoved her bare hand into the wound, cleanly pulling out the claw. In one swift motion she placed her other palm over the gaping hole and channeled her mana into it. 

She mentally scolded herself for not paying better attention to the rest of the battlefield. The sounds of fighting came into focus behind her as she stood up, preparing to assess everyone’s exhaustion levels, and to hand out potions before the next band of demons came through the rift. 

She found that Cassandra’s voice sounded a touch too close to her, her signature grunt hitting her ears as she cried out.

“Pyria MOVE!” 

The sudden feeling of weightlessness and the sound of her potions shattering as she hit the ground took her by surprise. She shook her head, reaching up to touch a wound which had formed. Her ears rang from the impact, and the world seemed to tilt on an axis. She found herself against a rock jutting out of the waterfall. 

She glanced around frantically looking for the source of her injury and Cassandra through the pain and disorientation. 

Her eyes snapped to Cassandra, pinned underneath a terror demon, presumably the one that had knocked her off of the cliff. She closed her eyes against the pain coming from the back of her head, blood began to pool in the water around her. 

She needed to get to Cassandra, and fast.

Dorian rushed towards Pyria, and she waved her arms frantically motioning for him to assist Cassandra, but by the time Dorian caught on he was too late, the terror demon had its sickly limb through her side, the only weak point in Cassandra’s armor. 

Pyria screamed Cassandra’s name, the feeling of Adrenaline rushing through her as she scrambled for a lyrium potion. If she could just fade jump again she could make it in time, she could help her. But all of her potions had shattered, their contents washed away by the rushing water.

She attempted to regain focus, squinting as she fade jumped just a bit farther up the waterfall. She would need to run. She could hear Varric grunting with effort as he attempted to shoot the demon with Bianca, diverting its attention towards him. Dorian threw up a wall of flames as it lunged towards them, a line of glyphs awaited the demon once as it crossed. 

Pyria found herself at Cassandra’s side once as the demon stepped onto the first glyph. The warrior laid there, sickly and pale, sweat matting her hair against her forehead. She panted, her eyes meeting Pyria’s but not yet daring to speak. 

“Cassandra, Cassandra, please say something.” Pyria shook her shoulders, her hands covered in both her own blood and Cassandra’s.

“Something.” Her Navarran accent was still audible as faint as her joke had been. 

Pyria nodded, running her hands over the wound, trying in vain to replenish her mana stores through concentration. 

“Please stay awake.” She pleaded with Cassandra as the warrior’s eyes began to drift towards the sky above her.

“It is beautiful.” The words were spoken lightly and Pyria’s heartbeat only continued to quicken. She creamed for Dorian and he rushed towards them.

“Dorian, please, please help me.” 

Dorian was taken aback at the plea for help. Pyria had never needed help with anything. He took note at how her healing magic would begin and then sputter out, and the blood dripping down the back of her skull. He could see that Cassandra was running out of time, and that Pyria was getting dangerously close to completely exhausting her mana. Without so much as a word he tried to channel his mana into Pyria, closing his eyes to focus. 

Pyria’s eyes snapped to attention with the addition of Dorian’s mana and she began to try and heal Cassandra in earnest. As she closed her eyes she could feel what the demon had punctured, Cassandra’s right lung. She pushed all of the mana towards the pierced organ and tried to imagine her whole, and healthy, laughing and reading romance novels. 

“It won’t work.” Cassandra’s voice was soft, her hands grabbing Pyria’s where they ghosted over her armor.

“Yes, yes it will.” She gritted out through a clenched jaw, Dorian’s mana was beginning to wane, with no concept of how much time had passed, she couldn’t understand why. 

“You can do this without me. You a-” 

“Stop!” Pyria shouted, her head dipping even lower in concentration, her body craned over Cassandra’s as if in supplication. She prayed to Mythal, to the Creators to Andraste, anyone who would listen to save her friend. 

“I’m not going to give up on you.” The tears clouding her eyes made Cassandra’s face appear to wobble, the grip that the warrior had on the mage’s wrist beginning to loosen.

“Don’t give up on me! Please! Please, please.” She had moved her hands to Cassandra’s face, her fingers running through her hair, attempting to keep the warrior awake.

“Please.” Pyria croaked.

Cassandra closed her eyes, her heart beating sowing to a stop underneath Pyria. 

She had failed. In something so fundamental to her identity, in something that others trusted her to be able to do for them she had failed. The lifeless body beneath her was a testament to this fact. Her heart hammered in her chest as she stared down at the serene expression of her friend, she could hardly hear Dorian speaking behind her as she continued trying to memorize the woman’s features, the sound of her voice. The feeling of her hair in her hands. 

Pyria felt Dorian trying to pull her off of Cassandra’s body, but her fingers felt locked into her hair, her legs anchored to the ground next to her. She could feel the mana exhaustion creeping into her skin, but found a hard time concentrating on it, or giving it the attention she should have.

—-

Pyria opened her eyes in her Skyhold bedroom. She had been there for at least a week now. She knew this because Solas had told her in one of the brief moments she had been conscious. She slept and slept, knowing she could get out of bed if she truly desired. She could hear her advisors when they had met in her room, as she continued pretending to sleep. It seemed they all had it under control without her. 

Without Cass

The harsh reality of what would await her when she got out of bed was something she had been trying to avoid. How would her friends react to her now that she had failed so miserably at one of the only things they had trusted her to do? How could she tell them she couldn’t save someone? Someone so important to all of them. Their true leader. 

She squeezed her eyes tighter and pulled the thick fur blanket over her head. It didn’t matter that it was already high noon and the heat was collecting in her room. She didn’t want to see anything. 

“You can’t hide forever.” Solas’s voice sounded muffled through the blanket, and Pyria found no need to respond. 

Of course the mage knew she wasn’t sleeping. 

“Everyone is worried about you Pyria.” The sound of him rustling out of his position seated at his desk and padding over to her bed was exaggerated, as if he made the sounds to let her know he was approaching. 

The covers were gently tugged out of her hand and his cool grey eyes met hers, amber and wet.

“Why are you hiding up here? There are things to get done. They need you.”

“They don’t. I can’t help anyone. I couldn’t save her.” Pyria’s eyes looked away from Solas’ then, afraid to see the anger and disapproval in his eyes. 

“You’ve saved thousands of people.” His voice was softer. “Would you like me to begin listing them off?” He leaned back in the chair, folding his hands in his lap as he looked up at the ceiling preparing the list in his mind. 

“No. What does it matter if I can’t save my friends?”

“Are the soldiers who believe in you worth less than Cassandra?”

Hearing her name stung at her heart and Pyria tried to gasp for air, not realizing she had been holding her breath. 

“No, that’s not it! I-”

“You are mourning your friend, and you’re blaming her death on yourself. Tell me, did Cassandra say it was your fault?”

“No, she-”

“She died peacefully, doing what she felt she was meant to do.” Solas took a deep breath in, leaning towards her again. 

“Her death doesn’t take away from your abilities or your importance. She wouldn’t want you to quit. Cassandra trusted you with this.”

He held her up by her shoulders then, supporting her weight on his arms.

“Solas, I don’t think I can do this anymore” She dropped her head onto his waiting shoulder, snot and tears likely staining his shirt. At another point in time Pyria might have felt embarrassed, but the feeling of dread and despair seated deep in her core was overpowering. She was grabbing onto and safety line she could. 

“I am sorry. You have to.” His eyes traveled to the top of her head. 

Sometimes, as Solas lied awake at night, he wondered what would have happened if a natural born leader had the anchor on their hand. Would they listen to his counsel? Would they make the decisions Pyria had made? With the compassion she had done it with? He doubted it. 

Still, guilt wracked through him. She was too young to bear all of this alone. The responsibility, the guilt. He wanted to feel it for her but knew she needed it to grow and become the leader they needed. 

His mistake had gotten her here and this was the least he could do. He carefully climbed into the bed next to her and shifted her weight onto his chest as she cried.

He knew she would continue to lead the inquisition, no matter how much she felt she couldn’t. He knew that everyone needed her to. But at least for this moment he would let her give up. If only for an hour or two.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! This was written for the DAPromptExchange Winter Fill-A-Thon 2020.


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